The South Puget Sound League North 4A might be the toughest boys basketball league in the state.

With Federal Way gunning for a repeat as state champion and Kentwood, Kentridge and Auburn vying for 4A tournament berths, few coaches would welcome the daunting task of facing the talented teams in the SPSL North.

But Auburn Riverside’s new coach, Shawn Kilgallon, would want it no other way.

“I figured if I was ever going to coach again, I only wanted to be in this league,” he said. “So I took a shot at the job.”

In 1999, Kilgallon, then coach of the Kentwood boys program, left teaching and coaching to fight testicular cancer. After beating the disease, Kilgallon stayed out of the gym and classroom to help raise his children.

“I left teaching to be a stay-at-home dad,” he said. “After my kids were old enough to go to school, my wife and I thought it would be nice for me to get back to work. I wasn’t really thinking as much about coaching as just getting back to teaching when the job opened up at Riverside.”

Kilgallon jumped at the chance to replace Tom Adams, who resigned last season to coach at his alma mater, Gig Harbor.

Kilgallon inherits a Ravens team that finished 11-12 and earned a trip to the West Central District III tournament.

Although the Ravens lost several seniors from last year’s squad, including standouts Mitch Hagerty and Devin Cagampang, the team returns a strong nucleus of players.

“Roman Tymchuk is our captain,” Kilgallon said. “But we have four seniors on the team – Tymchuk, Andy Andrews, Dustin Hegge and Ryan Rogers – who are all worthy of being captains. They all lead by example and are hard workers, especially Rogers.”

Rogers, a first-team all-SPSL North 4A selection last season, returns at one wing position.

“The only thing I knew when I applied for the job was Rogers,” Kilgallon said. “I only saw them once last year, and I remember thinking that I was surprised this kid was only a junior.”

Kilgallon said Rogers will be crucial to the team’s success.

“Rogers has been in the gym morning, noon and night, June, July and August,” Kilgallon said. “He’s never left the gym.”

With much of their size lost to graduation, the Ravens will look to take advantage of their speed, athleticism and shooting skills to hopefully outrun some of their opponents.

“We want 32 minutes of full court,” Kilgallon said. “Size wise, these guys have to play full court. If they’re not playing full court, they’re not reaching, they’re not going to achieve what they can achieve.

“They’re quick and they’re smart,” he added, “and we’ve got a handful of kids who can score.”

Rogers says the Ravens should be able to pile up the points this season.

“I’d say we’re a lot quicker on offense,” he said. “We lost a lot of senior starters last year, but we’ve been working really hard at trying to be the best team that we can be.

“We’re offensively gifted,” Rogers continued. “And that’s funny because we work about 20 or 30 percent on offense during practice. We mostly work on defense. But we’re still really good offensively. Now we’re just trying to balance those out.”

According to Kilgallon, the Ravens are capable of making the state field.

“They’re not quite ready conditioning-wise for 32 minutes,” he said. “But they’ll be ready. I think this is a team that will give a winning effort every night.”

Rogers and the Ravens have their sights set on one goal.

“We want to get over the hump and make it out of the districts and get to state,” he said.

The Ravens will host the No. 1 ranked Federal Way in their league opener at 7:30 tonight at Auburn Riverside. They will travel to Tahoma for a 7:30 p.m. contest next Tuesday against the Bears.